• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.35 no.9
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• pp.1099-1111
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• 2011

This study identified the types of consumer review information about apparel products based on consumer satisfaction/dissatisfaction with the availability/non-availability of consumer review information for online stores. Data were collected from 318 females aged 20s' to 30s', who had significant experience in reading consumer reviews posted on online stores. Consumer satisfaction/dissatisfaction with availability or non-availability of review information on online stores is different for information in regards to apparel product attributes, product benefits, and store attributes. According to the concept of quality elements suggested by the Kano model, two types of consumer review information were determined: Must-have information (product attribute information about size, fabric, color and design of the apparel product; benefit information about washing & care and comport of the apparel product; store attribute information about responsiveness, disclosure, delivery and after service of the store) and attracting information (attribute information about price comparison; benefit information about coordination with other items, fashionability, price discounts, value for price, reaction from others, emotion experienced during transaction, symbolic features for status, health functionality, and eco-friendly feature; store attribute information about return/refund, damage compensation and reputation/credibility of online store and interactive and dynamic nature of reviews among customers). There were significant differences between the high and low involvement groups in their perceptions of consumer review information.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.282-296
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• 2012

This study identified the types of motives for reading consumer reviews of apparel products for online stores and classified shoppers into the groups based on motives. Data were collected from eleven Korean women by a focus group interview and from 313 females by an online survey. Respondents were in their 20s' and 30s' with significant experience reading consumer reviews of apparel products for online stores. The seven motives found by interviews were reduced to four types of motives by factor analysis: Right product choice and judgment of product value, risk reduction, saving time and money, and fun/killing time. The motive for the right product choice and judgment of product value was the highest and the motive for fun/killing time was the lowest. Consumers were classified into four groups based on motives: Utilitarian shoppers (25.8%), shopping-task oriented shoppers (36.8%), multiple-motive shoppers (19.7%), and moderate-motive shoppers (17.7%). There were significant differences among age groups and the amount of reading reviews posted on a product and the duration of reading reviews for online stores. In addition, managerial implications were developed.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.1005-1016
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• 2012

Recently, as growing number of consumers publish product and service reviews on the Internet, e-review has received attention from retailers and researchers. E-review, a form of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) which is typically shared between strangers whose identity and credibility are unknown, has become an important product information source as social media has facilitated information exchanges between more consumers. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of e-review attributes on purchase intention for fashion products, which is mediated by trust of e-review, as well as to explore the differences between consumer communities and cooperative communities. A questionnaire was developed based on previous researches. Data were gathered from adults living in Busan. The results were analyzed by factor analysis, t-test, and regression using SPSS 18.0. The results showed that consumers tended to recognize e-reviews from consumer communities as exaggerated information, while they considered reviews from cooperative communities as reliable information, which gave the latter higher purchase intention. There were significant differences in e-review attributes for fashion products (e.g., Exaggeration, Entertainment, Innocence, and Agreement), purchase intention between consumer communities (e.g: Blog, Internet cafe) and cooperative communities (e.g: general malls and specialty malls). For both communities, purchase intention of fashion products was influenced by its entertainment attributes and perceived trust of e-reviews. These results suggest that e-retailers need to focus on understanding the causes of purchase intention with e-reviews for fashion products. Specifically, e-retailers should recognize that e-reviews of fashion products were associated primarily with entertaining and with consumers' trust. Based on these findings, managerial implications are presented.

• Korean Journal of Artificial Intelligence
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.25-33
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• 2024

This study examines the relationship between customer satisfaction and management response in the hotel industry amid the COVID-19 pandemic. By applying regression analysis and topic modeling to consumer reviews on online platforms, we assess how consumer perceptions and management behaviors have shifted since the onset of the pandemic. The findings reveal a significant decline in customer satisfaction linked to COVID-19. Significantly, while the pandemic has reduced overall customer satisfaction levels, high response rates and high review-response content similarity mitigate the impact of the crises. These results highlight the critical need for hotel managers to continuously monitor online reviews and adapt their engagement strategies to maintain and enhance customer satisfaction during ongoing and future crises. This research not only corroborates existing theories on customer satisfaction but also exposes novel dynamics introduced by the pandemic, offering new insights for effective customer relationship management in turbulent times.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.67-90
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• 2008

Prior to making choices among online products and services, consumers often search online product reviews written by other consumers. Online product reviews have great influences on consumer behavior because they are believed to be more reliable than information provided by sellers. However, ever-increasing lists of product reviews make it difficult for consumers to find the right information efficiently. A customized search mechanism is a method to provide personalized information which fits the user's requirements. This study examines effects of a customized search mechanism and perceived similarity between consumers and product reviewers on consumer behaviors. More specifically, we address the following research questions: (1) Can a customized search mechanism increase perceived similarity between product review authors and readers? (2) Are product reviews perceived as more credible when product reviews were written by the authors perceived similar to them? (3) Does credibility of product reviews have a positive impact on acceptance of product reviews? (4) Does acceptance of product reviews have an influence on purchase intention of the readers? To examine these research questions, a lab experiment with a between-subject factor (whether a customized search mechanism is provided or not) design was employed. In order to enhance mundane realism and increase generalizability of the findings, the experiment sites were built based on a real online store, cherrya.com (http://www.cherrya.com/). Sixty participants were drawn from a pool that consisted of undergraduate and graduate students in a large university. Participation was voluntary; all the participants received 5,000 won to encourage their motivation and involvement in the experiment tasks. In addition, 15 participants, who selected by a random draw, received 30,000 won to actually purchase the product that he or she decided to buy during the experiment. Of the 60 participants, 25 were male and 35 were female. In examining the homogeneity between the two groups, the results of t-tests revealed no significant difference in gender, age, academic years, online shopping experience, and Internet usage. To test our research model, we completed tests of the measurement models and the structural models using PLS Graph version 3.00. The analysis confirmed individual item reliability, internal consistency, and discriminant validity of measurements. The results show that participants feel more credible when product reviews were written by the authors perceived similar to them, credibility of product reviews have a positive impact on acceptance of product reviews, and acceptance of product reviews have an influence on purchase intention of the readers. However, a customized search mechanism did not increase perceived similarity between product review authors and readers. The results imply that there is an urgent need to develop a better customized search tool in order to increase perceived similarity between product review authors and readers.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.261-281
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• 2023

The proliferation of online customer reviews has completely changed how consumers purchase. Consumers now heavily depend on authentic experiences shared by previous customers. However, deceptive reviews that aim to manipulate customer decision-making to promote or defame a product or service pose a risk to businesses and buyers. The studies investigating consumer perception of deceptive reviews found that one of the important cues is based on review content. This study aims to investigate the impact of the information amount of review on the review truthfulness. This study adopted the Information Manipulation Theory (IMT) as an overarching theory, which asserts that the violations of one or more of the Gricean maxim are deceptive behaviors. It is regarded as a quantity violation if the required information amount is not delivered or more information is delivered; that is an attempt at deception. A topic modeling algorithm is implemented to reveal the distribution of each topic embedded in a text. This study measures information amount as topic diversity based on the results of topic modeling, and topic diversity shows how heterogeneous a text review is. Two datasets of restaurant reviews on Yelp.com, which have Filtered (deceptive) and Unfiltered (genuine) reviews, were used to test the hypotheses. Reviews that contain more diverse topics tend to be truthful. However, excessive topic diversity produces an inverted U-shaped relationship with truthfulness. Moreover, we find an interaction effect between topic diversity and reviews' ratings. This result suggests that the impact of topic diversity is strengthened when deceptive reviews have lower ratings. This study contributes to the existing literature on IMT by building the connection between topic diversity in a review and its truthfulness. In addition, the empirical results show that topic diversity is a reliable measure for gauging information amount of reviews.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.85-97
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• 2021

Online consumer activities have increased considerably since the COVID-19 outbreak. For the products and services which have an impact on everyday life, online reviews and recommendations can play a significant role in consumer decision-making processes. Thus, to better serve their customers, online firms are required to build online-centric marketing strategies. Especially, it is essential to define core value of customers based on the online customer reviews and to propose these values to their customers. This study discovers specific perceived values of customers in regard to a certain product and service, using online customer reviews and proposes a customer value proposition methodology which enables online firms to develop more effective marketing strategies. In order to discover customers value, the methodology employs a text-mining technology, which combines a sentiment analysis and topic modeling. By the methodology, customer emotions and value factors can be more clearly defined. It is expected that online firms can better identify value elements of their respective customers, provide appropriate value propositions, and thus gain sustainable competitive advantage.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.17 no.10
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• pp.2609-2626
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• 2023

The hotel industry is an example of experiential services. As consumers cannot fully evaluate the online review content and quality of their services before booking, they must rely on several online reviews to reduce their perceived risks. However, individuals face information overload owing to the explosion of online reviews. Therefore, consumer cognitive fluency is an individual's subjective experience of the difficulty in processing information. Information complexity influences the receiver's attitude, behavior, and purchase decisions. Individuals who cannot process complex information rely on the peripheral route, whereas those who can process more information prefer the central route. This study further discusses the influence of the complexity of review information on hotel ratings using online attraction review data retrieved from TripAdvisor.com. This study conducts a two-level empirical analysis to explore the factors that affect review value. First, in the Peripheral Route model, we introduce a negative binomial regression model to examine the impact of intuitive and straightforward information on hotel ratings. In the Central Route model, we use a Tobit regression model with expert reviews as moderator variables to analyze the impact of complex information on hotel ratings. According to the analysis, five-star and budget hotels have different effects on hotel ratings. These findings have immediate implications for hotel managers in terms of better identifying potentially valuable reviews.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.337-353
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• 2024

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between consumer reviews and managerial responses, aiming to explore the necessity of webcare for efficiently managing consumer reviews. We intend to propose a methodology for effective webcare and to construct a webcare model using machine learning techniques based on an audiobook platform. In this study, we selected four audiobook platforms and conducted data collection and preprocessing for consumer reviews and managerial responses. We utilized techniques such as topic modeling, topic inconsistency analysis, and DBSCAN, along with various machine learning methods for analysis. The experimental results yielded significant findings in clustering managerial responses and predicting responses to consumer reviews, proposing an efficient methodology considering resource constraints and costs. This research provides academic insights by constructing a webcare model through machine learning techniques and practical implications by suggesting an efficient methodology, considering the limited resources and personnel of companies. The proposed webcare model in this study can be utilized as strategic foundational data for consumer engagement and providing useful information, offering both personalized responses and standardized managerial responses.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.24 no.4 s.82
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• pp.103-116
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• 2006

This study reviews trends of Japanese consumer policies, with particular attention to the situations of operating local consumer centers, in an effort to find ways to develop rapidly changing local consumer administration practices in Japan. Budget cut on consumer administration by the Japanese government has resulted in a reduction of consumer centers in Todohuken, while new consumer policy, which seeks greater consumer independence, has encouraged civil consumer groups' participation in consumer administration. In particular, entrustment of consumer centers to civil groups has increasingly stimulated more region-oriented local consumer policies and enhanced the efficiency of consumer administration. To activate local consumer administration, it seems necessary to provide assistance to entrusted civil groups, strengthen business regulations of Todohuken administration, and ensure more effective operation practices of civil consumer groups.